The maintenance of commercial aircraft requires the coordination of multiple service and part suppliers, and the exchange of information relating to components on the aircraft that require service, maintenance or replacement. In the past, maintenance and service information for aircraft components was primarily logged by service personnel who were required to retrieve written records when servicing or replacing components. For example, in diagnosing onboard hardware problems, maintenance personnel often need to know the service history of a particular component in order to determine whether it might be the source of a hardware problem. This procedure necessarily requires service personnel to retrieve information about the component that was often stored off-board the aircraft.
The conventional procedure for identification of in-service and onboard aircraft components during aircraft maintenance operations is through visual identification by way of reading labels and/or part numbers affixed to the components. The problem with such conventional procedures is that reading labels or part numbers is a time consuming and difficult process, particularly in adverse weather conditions, darkness and/or crowded or cramped spaces. As part of the identification process, maintenance technicians often use awkward tools such as flashlights and mirrors and in many cases are required to remove access panels or other components, sometimes unnecessarily in order to gain visual access to aircraft components for visual identification. This approach can result in errors and long delays in flight schedules, as well inadvertent part removal, physical injury and aircraft damage.
More recently, in order to store information relating to the service and maintenance history of onboard aircraft components, it has been proposed to use RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags which are associated with, and often affixed to the aircraft components. Complete service and maintenance histories can thus be stored on and retrieved from the RFID tags by service personnel, obviating the need for retrieving off-site records. RFID tags comprise small radio tags or transponders containing a unique code together with other additional information that can be specified by the user and read by a reader/encoder from a distance without contact or line-of-site with the RFID tag. Tagging and tracking of products and devices utilizing RFID tags is widely used in manufacturing and packaging processes, but has seen limited use in labeling individual components on aircraft.
The use of RFID tags to identify aircraft components and store related maintenance information solves many of the problems discussed above. However, widespread use of the tags will result in the accumulation of a large amount of data that must be stored, managed and easily retrieved by service personnel.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an RFID data management system that overcomes the problems of the prior art discussed above. The present invention is directed toward satisfying this need.